Eight key House pols say they support unlicensed broadband apps. One says …

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A bipartisan octet of Congressional representatives have sent the Federal Communications Commission a letter supporting the use of TV White Space for unlicensed use, but a key committee chair suggests that some of the spectrum might be best tapped for licensed applications as well.

Meanwhile, warring industry players are putting out different spins on the FCC's latest round of tests in Maryland on unlicensed broadband technology. And next week Motorola will submit a new wireless mic beacon device to the FCC for evaluation.

Let's do it

On Tuesday, Congressmember Jay Inslee (D-WA) and seven other reps sent FCC Chair Kevin Martin a statement saying that they "look forward" to the agency setting up rules within the next 90 days "to open the whitespace spectrum and provide adequate protection to existing users." The signers all agree that the technology, which taps into temporarily unused TV channels for wireless broadband, could be used to set up low cost home networks, improve factory operations, or make high speed Internet in rural areas more available.

"The FCC's adoption of rules governing unlicensed TVWS [TV white space] should be one of your highest priorities," their letter concluded, "so that all Americans can realize the societal and economic benefits that emanate from access to broadband services." The reps include Mike Honda (D-CA), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), and Ray LaHood (R-IL).

The letter follows the more cautious approach of Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), Chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, who last week urged the FCC to consider "all proposals" for the spectrum, including licensing some of it. "It is possible that a licensing regime could help mitigate the impact of harmful interference to incumbents in this spectrum," Dingell wrote on August 5. "I urge the Commission to carefully and deliberately weigh each proposal prior to reaching any tentative or preliminary conclusions."

Pass/fail?

Inslee et al's statement follows the conclusion of the FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology's (OET) latest round of tests. Over the weekend these included demos during a Broadway musical at the Majestic Theater and at a football game at Maryland's FedEx Field to determine whether unlicensed apps submitted by Philips interfere with wireless microphones.

Skeptics of the ability of unlicensed devices to avoid interference said that the tryouts confirmed their fears about the technology. Right after the last tests Microphone maker Shure's Senior Public Relations Director Mark Brunner sent out a statement declaring that they "conclusively show that spectrum sensing white space devices will cause harmful interference to wireless microphones during live events."

Philips and its supporters, on the other hand, claimed victory. "The Philips device successfully and accurately detected occupied channels," declared Jake Ward of the Wireless Innovation Alliance, which represents Google, Microsoft, and other boosters of unlicensed use. "We are extremely pleased with the collective results from the FCC field testing phase over these past few weeks."

But such declarations of failure and success should probably be taken with a large bucket of salt. In fact, these stripped-down prototype devices bear only a partial resemblance to the kind of applications that would be commercially available if the FCC approves unlicensed broadband. And the OET's exams subdivide the technical challenges the apps face into bite sized tasks. These are not "pass/fail tests," FCC spokesperson Robert Kenny told Ars.

Divided we falter

Meanwhile Motorola is gearing up to submit more unlicensed broadband technology to the FCC. The OET evaluated some of Motorola's apps during the last month of testing, and will receive a wireless mic beacon device from the company next week.

Ars caught up with Motorola's policy director Steve Sharkey today. Sharkey says that Motorola's approach to avoiding wireless mic interference is to use geolocation devices and attached beacons. The geo machines will work for wireless microphones placed in fixed areas, like a Broadway play or sports game. As for "applications that are not so tied down in time or in place, like, say, a news gathering truck," Sharkey added that they would have a beacon "that would tell white space devices in the area to avoid whatever channel the truck would be using."

But Sharkey told Ars that he is skeptical of proposals to license white space, particularly those submitted to the FCC last week by Aloha partners. As Ars has reported, Aloha argues that an average of 75MHz of white space spectrum is available in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. This resource, licensed out, could succeed where WiFi has allegedly failed, the company claims.

Sharkey said that he doubts that that much spectrum could really be squeezed out of a licensed system. The Motorola director agrees that there's potentially a lot of white space out there. "But at any one place its a different part of that and a different amount of that that's actually available," he explained, "Once you start to divide it up into smaller blocks, either geographically or by smaller spectrum amounts, you lose all of that strength."

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Matthew Lasar
Matt writes for Ars Technica about media/technology history, intellectual property, the FCC, or the Internet in general. He teaches United States history and politics at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Emailmatthew.lasar@arstechnica.com//Twitter@matthewlasar